Stop me if you've read this before: a former Boston Red Sox player showed out in his debut with a new team.
Sox fans have heard all about Kyle Harrison's dominance for the Milwaukee Brewers, Braden Montgomery's MLB-debut walk-off homer for the Chicago White Sox and James Tibbs III's explosion in the Los Angeles Dodgers' farm system. On June 12, Blaze Jordan joined their ranks.
Jordan on Friday made his MLB debut for the St. Louis Cardinals about 10 months after the Red Sox shipped him there at the 2025 trade deadline. The 23-year-old raked over his first series in the big leagues while the Cardinals visited the Minnesota Twins.
Jordan went 5-for-12 at Target Field, with a triple, a home run and four RBI to kick his major league career off strongly. He suited up at third and first base for St. Louis and turned two double plays at the latter corner.
Former Red Sox top prospect Blaze Jordan posts 1.250 OPS in his MLB debut series with the Cardinals
From 500-foot homers at 13 years old to his first Major League homer 😮
— MLB (@MLB) June 13, 2026
Blaze Jordan has arrived 🔥 pic.twitter.com/J11IavvuMB
The former Sox top prospect got the call to the big leagues to replace Nolan Gorman, who's had an atrocious season offensively, to the tune of a .194/.279/.318 slash line and 11 extra-base hits over 62 games. Jordan, on the other hand, got off to a great start with the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds, with a .313/.373/.548 slash line, 19 doubles, a triple and 11 homers over 57 games.
The Red Sox sent Jordan to the Cardinals in exchange for reliever Steven Matz, who undeniably helped on their quest to the playoffs. Matz posted a 2.08 ERA and 0.88 WHIP over 21.2 innings as a much-needed veteran presence in Boston's bullpen, but many fans were disappointed to see Jordan go last year.
Former Red Sox chief baseball officer and current Cardinals general manager Chaim Bloom drafted Jordan while he was with the Red Sox. Jordan was one of a few projectable corner infield prospects in the Sox's system. Boston could've used him at third base after Alex Bregman departed in free agency to sign with the Chicago Cubs.
But the Matz-Jordan trade is one the Red Sox should almost always make. Not every prospect is going to turn out and Matz went a long way toward making the bullpen more reliable during Boston's first playoff appearance since 2021.
Breslow and Bloom both got what they wanted out of the 2025 deadline trade that kicked off a trade bromance, of sorts, between them. Dealing a top prospect like Jordan is a risk teams have to take to acquire a quality rental, no matter how much it might hurt to see yet another former Red Sox prospect or player immediately succeed with another club.
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